


Too Busy Being Yours

by cobalamincosel, n_ikuman



Series: Neon City [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Band Fic, Blow Jobs, Cock Warming, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Spiecy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:56:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_ikuman/pseuds/n_ikuman
Summary: Johnny likes it when he’s the reason why Yuta’s fucked stupid out of his mind. Likes it even more when Yuta spends the night in his bed, when Yuta lets him take care of him and clean him up, but Yuta usually doesn’t, and Johnny’s never one to push.That’s not what they are.They’re in a band together, and Johnny knows it’s bad news to shit where you eat, but it’s okay because neither he nor Yuta really care much about whatever it is they are.They’re bandmates.They fuck.It’s really not a big deal.





	Too Busy Being Yours

**Author's Note:**

> It has become extremely apparent to me that the way I deal with high-stress situations lately is to just... fucking write smut.
> 
> It definitely does not help that Jiani posted this gorgeous art [of Johnny in a rockband.](https://twitter.com/n_ikuman/status/1155046056801046529?s=20) and then posted [ANOTHER ONE](https://twitter.com/n_ikuman/status/1156150657897906177?s=20) while we were screaming at each other in DMs.
> 
> I have been horny for three days writing this. I can't fucking believe it. And then she posts [this](https://twitter.com/n_ikuman/status/1156695153714835462?s=20) as well so I had to deal with this fucking photo in my head all afternoon.
> 
> Thank you Jiani for fueling this story and feeding the flame. Thank you for letting me write to your art and for helping me write this. I kept many, many, many of your ideas here. It's been such a massive honour.
> 
> Thank you Erin for sending me that clip that we've both been losing our goddamn minds over for the last couple of days and which inspired a few scenes in this fic. 
> 
> Thank you Izzyboo, Cap and Ain for screaming at me and also catching my typos and being inadvertent beta readers for me.
> 
> Thank you to Klo for not judging me at all when I said I needed to get this out of my system and she was like "Darling I support whatever gets you in a better headspace to study!" I love you. I love you truly.
> 
> -
> 
> jiani's side notes: watch this before you read the fic and pre-wet ur panties. if you want, skip to 3:00 for the guitar solo. bye. [youtube video](https://youtu.be/CvA5312xQGo)
> 
> jiani's 2nd side notes: here is a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0edzaqO1J9Dp3GH58r4FNv?si=NRfvOf8ITvqRoYQ1X13XzA)
> 
> -
> 
> Title is from Do I Wanna Know? by the Arctic Monkeys. Thanks for the sex music, Alex Turner.
> 
> -
> 
> Please see this [thread](https://twitter.com/johnnyseo_paws/status/1157665400798081024?s=20) for more goodies like [moodboards](https://twitter.com/johnnyseo_paws/status/1177181224353198080?s=20) and more [moodboards](https://twitter.com/johnnyseo_paws/status/1186176043394031616?s=20).

Yuta fucks like he’s playing the bass. 

Or, he plays the bass the way he fucks. 

Johnny can’t be too sure which one he means at the moment since he’s got himself buried in Yuta’s ass, and Yuta’s mouth groaning into the down feather and cotton of the pillow he’s got his face pressed into. 

“Fuck,” Yuta groans out, his back a beautiful curve now that he’s got his hand stretched out in front of him while Johnny slams into his prostate over and over. Yuta’s usually got such a smart fucking mouth, usually is the more eloquent one in the band when they’re being interviewed by the press. He’s different when he’s in Johnny’s hands, when he’s in Johnny’s bed. 

“Is-- is that all you got, hot stuff?” Yuta pants, looking over his shoulder to watch Johnny drive himself home. This spurs Johnny on, of course, it does, because Yuta is gorgeous and he’s also a fucking prick and loves to rile Johnny up whenever he can. Loves to get a rise out of him. Loves it when Johnny gets a little rough with him. 

Johnny grunts, his fingers digging into the points of Yuta’s hips, and Yuta is giving as much as he’s taking, pushing against every thrust. The music blaring from Johnny’s speakers barely drowns out Yuta telling him to fuck him harder, but at this point, Johnny can’t seem to parse between Yuta’s moans and the heavy riff of the guitar that tangles in with Alex Turner’s voice. 

He’s gripping Yuta’s erection, palming it as he bends himself over Yuta, tongue sliding up the expanse of Yuta’s spine and it makes Yuta shudder, makes him push himself up to kneeling, dislodging Johnny momentarily until they’re both kneeling on the bed, Johnny bracing Yuta against his chest and using his hand to slide back into him, the condom still snug against the base of his dick. 

This is one of Yuta’s favorite positions, and even if Johnny had laughed when he’d told Johnny it was called teaspooning, it really didn’t take away from the fact that when Johnny fucked him like this, it always makes Yuta come hard enough that he’s incoherent for several minutes after. 

Johnny likes it when he’s the reason why Yuta’s fucked stupid out of his mind. 

Likes it even more when Yuta spends the night in his bed, when Yuta lets him take care of him and clean him up, but Yuta usually doesn’t, and Johnny’s never one to push. 

That is not what they are. 

They’re in a band together, and Johnny knows it’s bad news to shit where you eat, but it’s okay because neither he nor Yuta really care much about whatever it is they are. They’re bandmates. 

They fuck. It’s really not a big deal. 

They channel their energy into the music they make and it’s a good thing that Jaehyun and Doyoung handle lead vocals because some nights, all Yuta can do is croak out a quick “I’m sorry, came down with something last night,” to the crowd, which makes Doyoung mutter “went down on something, you mean,” into the microphone and their fans are roaring with laughter and teasing and it should piss Yuta off but it doesn’t. Yuta just laughs and flips Doyoung off, before Jaehyun takes command of the room again to lead them into the next song. 

They channel their energy into writing new music, spending hours in the studio or in each other’s apartments going through lyrics and chord progressions and arguing too much about whether it’s worth it getting another Wah pedal. 

They channel their energy into this, Johnny wrapped up in Yuta’s heat, his abdomen tensing beneath his palms. The tips of Yuta’s fingers trace against the skin on Johnny’s forearm, calloused and rough against the tendril of the sun Johnny has marked permanently on his elbow. Yuta’s breathing is shallow, in time with Johnny’s thrusts. Johnny thinks that nothing in the world compares to the feeling of this-- not their gig, not their first nomination, not a single hit from any synthetic they’ve been offered and turned away in the years that they’ve built their career with Taeyong at the helm-- nothing compares to the feeling of fucking into Yuta and having Yuta moan his name while he strokes Yuta to completion. 

Yuta comes in small, hot spurts, spilling over Johnny’s fingers while Johnny thumbs over the head until Yuta’s whining. Johnny isn’t even close to finishing yet, but he moves to pull out because Yuta prefers to have Johnny come on his face or in his mouth more often than not and tonight doesn’t seem to be an exception. 

He slides out and slides the condom off and Yuta is lying on his back, gathering all the pillows to elevate him and rest his head on, and his smirk is all Johnny gets of a command before Johnny’s straddling Yuta’s chest, knees on either side of Yuta’s torso. Yuta is looking up at him, eyes hooded, tongue out. Johnny has never seen anyone as sinful as this man. 

He uses one hand to brace himself over the headboard of this hotel bed, and the other to guide his erection into Yuta’s mouth, a moan leaving him when Yuta begins to suck on the head of his cock with much more fervor than he expected. Yuta’s hands anchor themselves onto the back of Johnny’s thighs, guiding him to push into his mouth more, and it is only when Johnny hits the back of Yuta’s throat that he allows himself to breathe. 

“Are you okay?” Johnny says, willing himself to keep his voice steady. 

Yuta raises his eyebrow like a petulant bastard, as if he doesn’t have an entire mouthful of Johnny’s prick, and swallows around him, making Johnny jolt forward and nearly come on the spot. 

“Fuck, fucking shit,” Johnny hisses. “I was just asking, fuck, you’re such a brat.” 

Yuta responds by grasping Johnny at the base of his cock and pulling off to lick one long stripe on the underside of his erection, looking up at Johnny defiantly like he’s daring him to doubt him some more. 

“When,” Yuta says, a small kitten lick to catch the clear precum that drips down from the slit. “When have I never been okay?” 

“Okay, okay, Jesus” Johnny says, breathless and turned on beyond reason. “You’ve made your point.” 

It’s the last that they say for a while, because where Yuta is vocal, Johnny is restrained, and save for a couple of “oh, yeah, that’s it,” and “God, Yuta,” muttered under his breath while he rocks his hips toward Yuta’s mouth, it’s only their breathing and the heavy bass of Sex on Fire filling their suite, until Yuta is pushing John back, back, making Johnny lie down and spread his legs so he can take him even deeper, and it’s then that Johnny gasps out “I’m gonna come,” while Yuta braces himself over his hips and Johnny comes in hot spurts all over Yuta’s lips, his cheek, his chin. 

Johnny throws his head back, the room upside down, everything feeling like it’s spinning. There’s a ringing in his ears that makes him woozy until a warm weight settles on top of him. 

Yuta’s a mess, an entire goddamn mess, and it’s so good when it’s with him. Johnny laughs, cradling Yuta’s face in his hand and brings him in for a kiss. It’s gross, it really is, but Johnny doesn’t care about the filth when it’s with Yuta. Yuta who peppers Johnny’s cheeks with kisses before he hops off the bed to run the washcloth under the sink. Johnny feels himself slipping under, but he comes to when Yuta is gently wiping off the cum from his thighs with a wet cloth. 

“Let’s order in,” Yuta is saying when Johnny pulls his head back up, the haze of his afterglow leaving him. “I feel like getting burgers.” 

Johnny glances at the clock on the bedside table that has neon green numbers, the glow of the 11:47 PM making him a bit wary of the decision to eat something so heavy so late, but Yuta eats like his body is a furnace or a garbage truck or something-- whether he’s eating healthy or absolute trash, Yuta is still slender in a way that always leaves Johnny reeling. 

Yuta calls room service in, and he’s pulled the covers back on his own queen-sized bed, the white comforter covering him from the waist, down. Yuta’s voice always softens when he shifts to his native tongue, and there’s a tenderness there that Johnny thinks Yuta isn't even aware of. It’s their first time touring outside of Korea, and when Johnny looks out the window, there are twinkling lights of Osaka in the street below. He can’t even believe that they’re in a room with two queen-sized beds when the last time he’d gone to Osaka, back in college, back when he had no idea that a couple of years down the line he’d be in a band with someone just within the city’s limits, he and Doyoung had had to share a tiny room with a tiny bed and an even tinier bathroom. 

Yuta’s frowning at his phone. His hair is in disarray, sticking up at the back from where he’d been pressed up against the pillows and the headboard while Johnny fucked his mouth. Johnny thinks that Yuta looks best when he’s like this: naked, make-up off, most of his earrings off, hickeys marring his pale skin from the neck down. Johnny closes his eyes, wills himself and his dick to calm the fuck down. 

He knows Yuta would be down for it if he asked, but it’s late, they’ve got a flight in the morning, and they’re about to devour what amounts to their second dinner. Johnny sighs and rights himself up to fix the rest of the pillows back at the head of his bed. 

There’s music playing from Yuta’s laptop, something he doesn’t recognize, but definitely has a bass solo that Johnny knows Yuta is going to attempt to cover and upload on his Instagram account. It’s nice, how they all have their own little thing. Their social media presence has definitely helped get them some of the traction that they’ve needed, both on their band’s account, and on their personal ones. 

It definitely helps that they’ve got a little blue checkmark beside their usernames now. 

They both wash up before the food arrives, and Johnny has to resist the urge once again to stop himself from asking Yuta to stay in his bed instead. The only times Yuta actually does curl up and into him is when they’re both drunk out of their minds, kisses whiskey-sweet after sets in smaller bars. It’s not a big deal, really, since they’re not dating. They fuck each other because it feels good, and it’s hard to get off when you’re so busy. Harder too, when the price of this mild fame they’ve got going means that they can’t hook up with just anyone in any bar anymore, not the way it used to be when all they ever had were seedy bars and the occasional birthday or school fair. So Johnny shrugs it off. It’s just sex, and while the sex is so, so fucking good, it doesn’t have to be anything more than a utility thing. 

So they eat their burgers in companionable silence, and when they’ve both brushed their teeth and turned the lights out and crawled into their respective beds, Johnny shuts that niggling voice out, outs his earphones in, and turns up his music a little louder than necessary for 2 am until sleep takes hold. 

-

Johnny has no goddamn right. He keeps telling himself this whenever they’re out and the rest of the group goes off to separate rooms to mess around with people. They’re at this party, a bunch of people in bands milling about with friends of friends of friends. Johnny had seen Yuta disappear into a room with some pretty women earlier, and he’s trying not to think about how more and more, he finds himself uninterested in other people who aren’t the red-headed bassist.

It’s an hour later when Johnny finds himself making out with some guy whose name he doesn’t even know, someone just a bit shorter than him, but definitely more heavyset than Yuta is. His hands are on the guy’s hips when he feels him pull away, and he feels fingers in his hair, his cap discarded long ago, tossed somewhere on the floor near the pool. 

They’re behind the house, and this guy is making a move to start kneeling in front of Johnny, hands already on Johnny’s fly when Johnny halts him, and says, “Sorry man, I’m not really uh-- like, feeling it,” and the guy smiles up at him and says, “Yeah, I could tell.” 

It makes Johnny feel like shit because he doesn’t like the feeling that he’s using this person as a placeholder, and he’s about to start apologizing profusely before the guy says, “Hey, it’s cool, don’t worry about it okay?” and the guy is pressing his warm hand against Johnny’s cheek. “A word of advice though: a guy can tell when they’re kissing someone who is thinking about kissing one else, big boy.” 

The guy leaves, and Johnny exhales. He’s in a sour mood, and he wants to go home, but he’s got a sneaking suspicion that he’s gonna be stuck here all night unless he decides to leave on his own. 

He heads back inside, the party still going pretty much in full swing, and he joins Jaehyun and Doyoung who are going shot for shot with Chanyeol and Sehun in the massive white kitchen, surrounded by people cheering them on. Johnny can’t even remember whose house they’re in anymore, just knows that they’re in UN Village and that half the people in this room alone are people he’d never in his life imagined rubbing elbows with. 

Fame’s still something they’re all grappling with, but Johnny remembers where they came from, remembers the early days when trying to book gigs was something they still struggled to do, and all he can have right now is gratitude. And maybe some more of the expensive tequila that Doyoung has just spat out his mouth. 

“Johnnyboy!” Sehun shouts over the din, calling him over. “Where’ve you been? Get your ass over here!” 

Johnny laughs to himself, pulling his cap off, trying to slick his hair back into place before letting the cap settle backward on his head again. He resolves to not think about the fact that Yuta is probably fucking into someone right now. He resolves to kick himself in the nuts as a reminder that Yuta is not his boyfriend, that he has no right to feel jealousy-- Johnny swallows around the word like it’s poison-- especially when all they are are bandmates who fuck sometimes. 

Johnny loses himself in the alcohol, letting himself get progressively drunker by the minute, not backing down when Chanyeol dares him to shotgun three cans of beer in a row and he fails spectacularly; not backing down when Jaehyun, red in the face, hands him a Jaeger bomb like they’re fucking 21 and not 27 going on 28 years old.

Later, when most of the people have left and Johnny is passed out on the couch like they’re at some fucking frat party and not a KRW $450 billion mansion in Hannam, Johnny feels cold hands on his face, and he comes to, vision swimming, belly full and absolutely nauseous. 

Yuta is there, kneeling on the floor next to him, and his eyes are bright. 

“How much did you guys have to drink? Jaehyun has been throwing up for an hour,” Yuta laughs. “It’s a good thing we don’t have any shows anytime soon. Boy’s voice is gonna be fucked in the morning.”

Johnny groans, the entire world spinning, and he barely registers Yuta’s face coming into view. 

“I think I’m still drunk,” Johnny says. His brain feels like the inside of an hourglass that’s filled with honey instead of sand. Yuta helps him sit up, and Johnny nearly throws up on his shoes. He manages to swallow it down. 

Yuta is bringing a glass to his lips, and Johnny doesn’t realize just how dehydrated he actually is until he’s downing the water and Yuta is telling him to drink slower. 

There’s more than just alcohol and bile that Johnny has to swallow down though. 

“Have a good night?” Johnny asks, and by some miracle, he manages to keep the bitterness out of his voice. _You have no right_, Johnny tells himself. _No goddamn right_.

“I did,” Yuta grins from ear to ear. “They were great, but I think the girls were more into each other than into being with me. We all still had fun, and they were nice. It’s all good.” 

Johnny smiles, lazy, and brings his hand up to stroke the hair on Yuta’s nape. The bitterness leaves him. He’d never hold anything against Yuta, especially not something that made him feel good. 

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “It’s all good.” 

-

The next time he comes down Yuta’s throat is when Johnny thinks, “I’m going to give you the world,” which is shit he really needs to stop thinking because it’s ridiculous being all sappy over Yuta while they’re fucking when it doesn’t mean anything.

Or it does, but Johnny’s never gonna tell Yuta that it does. 

So he works his fingers to the bone, writing new music with Taeyong and Doyoung and meeting with producers and they’re hitting the studios and they’re practicing day in and day out and-- 

And they get the world. 

They get the world tour they’d only ever dreamed of having, and they sign on with Capitol Records and before Johnny knows it, before any of them know it, they’re packing their lives into several suitcases and getting on a flight to tour for several months. 

It doesn’t register to Johnny that this is all real, because the months go by like they’re flying. It’s all a flurry of Jaehyun’s velvet baritone and Doyoung’s falsettos, Johnny’s fingers cramping up when he does his solos, only ever getting a chance to sort of rest them in the in-betweens of their songs that have him on keys. 

Their venues are intimate enough that half the time they’re at eye-level with their fans and it’s exactly the kind of shit that gets all of them going. And it’s a good thing that they’re so busy, hauling their guitars and their gear from concert hall to colosseum, from plane to bus, because Johnny doesn’t have time to think about how fucked up he is over Yuta, not really. It’s sort of messy, in an exhilarating kind of way. 

Every other night they’re walking on stage and screaming into microphones, shouting “Good evening, we are Neon City!” to their fans and listening to the crowd give them twice the energy they put out. When Johnny manages to shield his eyes from the glare of the spotlights, he makes sure to catch every person’s eye somehow, to make eye contact and send over a wink or a smile or shout a “fuck yeah!” their way, because he remembers every single concert he’s ever been too, every single one, and he remembers standing in the heat of the pit and being pressed up against the barricade hoping for a glance, a nod, anything from his heroes. 

They’re onstage now, and Johnny is pacing around in front, long having abandoned the little platform they’d prepared for him, and there’s electricity in his veins, electricity in his fingertips as he feels the cut of the steel strings. He has a solo coming after this verse, and it’s when he removes himself from everything to close his eyes and just feel. 

He’d said this to Doyoung once, while they’d ended up hot-boxing in the small studio that Johnny’s got set up in his apartment, that he’s most alive when he’s left to his own devices onstage. Johnny loves every single song they’ve turned out, and that makes it easy to have it move through him, move him, and he tells Doyoung it feels like sex, like suspension, like he gets to sublimate, become one with the aether. Doyoung had closed his eyes then, smiled lazy and slow, and said, “I know what you mean.” 

That’s where Johnny is right now. He’s got his eyes closed, and Jaehyun’s voice is jagged, it is waves crashing on a cliff face, it’s beautiful. The trumpets go off, Doyoung’s head voice pulling out the emotion and it’s there, Johnny’s got his eyes shut, his fingers moving over frets with ease like it isn’t him who is in control. The venue is filled with a haze that catches the purple lights overhead. This is solemn. This feels like prayer. It feels like the entire room holds its breath like the tension builds and builds and builds.

And then Johnny feels a hand on his neck, and his eyes fly open because Johnny’s still playing, but Yuta is in front of him, bending Johnny to meet him, to touch his forehead to his, and Yuta’s thumb is on his cheek, and they’re one breath away from kissing, that’s how close they are, and Johnny nearly misses a chord, and the crowd loses its fucking mind. 

Johnny loses his fucking mind. 

Yuta is triumphant, his smile a shining gash in the darkness, and something inside Johnny blooms and breaks in equal measure. 

Fanservice with an undercurrent of something else--- something raw that makes Johnny want to smash the metal and iron against the stage. Johnny pushes the sweat from his eyes, pulls off another pick from the stand in front of him while Yuta works the front of the stage, his slender fingers flying over the frets in a way that he never could, even when Yuta had tried to teach him how to play the bass years ago. 

He’s shaking the rest of the set, even when they take things up again and end with Prayer of the Wicked which always gets their fans upping their screaming and singing to fever pitch. Johnny can’t seem to shake it off, how close Yuta was tonight. Johnny knows that among the four of them, no one pulls on the strings of their fans better than Yuta does. He embraces it-- the joy of being the one with the most energy, the one who really walks onstage with nothing but a harness and his leather jeans on, looking like a softcore porno dream, and giving their fans (and Johnny) the emotional whiplash of seeing him get interviewed in fucking Fred Perry shirts and stars dangling from chains. 

Taeyong says it’s good that Yuta plays up the duality thing so well. Everyone brings something to the table, but when he wants to be, Yuta is the puppetmaster and no one-- not a single one of them-- can resist it. 

Their encore ends, and the lights are shut off when they run off stage, the chanting of the fans carrying all the way to the dressing rooms. They’re exhausted but it’s clear the night isn’t over. 

Johnny is wound up, still reeling from Yuta’s little display onstage, and he thinks about how the last time they’d fucked was nearly two weeks ago-- something that had come more or less easily since they’ve been so, so busy. Johnny tells himself that the distance is for the best, but clearly it hasn’t been when Yuta thinks he can pull this shit onstage no less, and not have it affect Johnny in any way.

They find themselves in a bar downtown, someplace where they’re sectioned off, Taeyong herding them into the corner of the room that has sprawling leather couches before a flurry of people come to attend to them and take their orders. 

This club is so loud they have to keep leaning into each other to hear anything that isn’t the EDM that’s blaring over the speakers. Their crew is with them, other assistants and their stylists and Taeyong’s contacts. It’s good. Johnny allows himself to give into the music, remembers that just because they are, as Jaehyun likes to say, rock stars now, at the very heart of it he’s still a guy who just likes music, and even if he spends 80% of his days playing on his Les Paul, tonight he is reminded that he can actually let loose and dance a little, and even if he can’t stand this club remix of Shape of You, he’s still shout-singing anyway. 

He’s got his eyes closed and his hands over his head dancing with Taeyong when he sees Yuta break off from the dancing throng, leading the way to the back of the dark labyrinth that is this bar with someone in tow-- someone tall, taller than him almost, and it makes him want to riot. 

He feels this ugly thing take root in his chest, can feel it somewhere lodged between his heart and his trachea, and it’s awful. He wants to claw it out with his nails, wants to cut it out with a crowbar. Suddenly the entire room is too hot, and he leans in close to Taeyong’s ear to tell him he’s going to get a drink, and Taeyong is shimmering in the blue light, the green strobe catching the silver hanging off of his ears. He’s reminded of his affection for this man who has had to put up with their band’s bullshit for over five years at this point. Taeyong is their producer and their manager, and Johnny knows that Neon City would have imploded under its own weight if Taeyong hadn’t taken the helm. 

“Are you okay?” Taeyong shouts back. 

“I will be,” Johnny replies, and Taeyong trusts him. He does, without a doubt. So he leaves.

Doyoung is sitting on the couch, nursing a glass of whiskey between his palms when Johnny gets back, and it only takes one look at Johnny for him to pull the bottle of tequila closer and line a shot up for him.

Johnny takes the shot. 

And then another.

And then another. 

Doyoung pretends that he can hold his liquor, but it took him two days to recover from the night at Baekhyun’s. Johnny appreciates that Doyoung’s chosen to sit with him, even if under his skin he is still seething with this fucking tar that seems to have spread from his ribs and bled into the nerves of his hands, his feet. 

“You okay? Did you see Yuta like, go into the back with that--” Doyoung hiccups. “That dude? Tall guy, looked like you. Thought it was you before I realized you were dancing with Yongie.”

Just like that, all the fight leaves Johnny. 

He slumps over like ice has been dumped over him. He hadn’t seen the guy, no. Just saw Yuta. Only ever sees Yuta. Jesus, Seo, he thinks. You really went and fucked it up for yourself this time. 

He can’t stay here, he knows. It’s a good thing tonight’s gig is in their own city. Seems goddamn fortuitous, really. He’s had too much to drink, but not enough that he thinks he can stand being in the hotel that the label’s put them in for the night, so he hails a cab and lets his body work on autopilot when he’s paying for his ride 30 minutes later, moving one step after step to get to his apartment and reach for the gym bag that he knows is sitting at the foot of his bed. 

Within the hour, he’s at the boxing gym just a few blocks from his place, this small run-down gym that Mr. Lee had given him access to. It’s where he goes when he feels like he can’t contain himself. People use it during the day, but Mr. Lee had said he could use it whenever he wanted to, and now more than ever, he’s grateful for this. 

He’s still wound up, and he’s got his wraps in his bag but Johnny is consumed with that dark, dark thing, and he can’t stand it. 

He should have known that things would cave in on him like this. He’d spent so long trying to keep a tourniquet on this fucking emotion, has spent so long telling himself that this wasn’t love, but then they started fucking and Johnny knows, he knows how fucking stupid it is to have played with fire like this, because for the most part it really all just had been sex. They’ve all slept around before. It was fun and it was good, so fucking good, Johnny has honestly never, ever felt as good as he does when he’s with Yuta, and that’s the kicker, isn’t it? That Johnny will catch Yuta’s radiant smile and then he’s doubling over, completely far gone for the bassist. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise really. Yuta has always been exuberant, has always managed to make you feel like you wanted to be in his orbit. This entire fucking without feelings business wouldn’t be so difficult if Yuta was just an asshole. Johnny would have been able to deal with that, would have been able to shove emotion to the side and just fuck Yuta’s brains out and then not feel a single thing if Yuta embraced the whole being a hot mess of a rock star shtick, but as it is, Johnny’s really got no luck. No luck.

Yuta holds the band together. He’s arguably the most talented bassist Johnny has ever had the chance to hear play, someone who taught himself from day one, and decided to just keep teaching himself until Yuta had started shaping his raw talent like blown glass. In terms of technical skill, Yuta has only ever gone upwards and onwards. But it’s everything else he is outside of being just the bassist for Neon City that has Johnny all tied up in knots. 

Things like how Yuta has a small book of poetry that his grandmother had given him when he was a child that he carries with him all the time, and will sometimes read out loud; how he’s always conspiring with Doyoung to arrange little surprises for the crew that works with them tirelessly; how one of his favorite things to do is to work his thumbs into the spaces beneath Taeyong’s scapula when he knows that Yong’s carrying more stress than he lets on. 

Things like how Yuta has always, without fail, made sure to know that you’ve made him happy because his joy is always so sincere. Things like how Yuta is a good man, a good person, and has only ever made Johnny want to be better himself. 

Johnny balls his fists, and he knows that this next decision is a mistake. Taeyong is going to kill him, but his fist is flying, bare knuckle and bone hitting leather once, twice, over and over again until Johnny feels the fucking magma in his limbs recede and get replaced with the sharp sting. 

He’s lead guitar for a band that’s currently on tour, and he’s fucking his hands up because he’s in love with their bassist. This is an all-time fucking low, even for Johnny. 

Yuta makes him want to write the kind of music that hurts, the kind of songs they use in those little indie films about loving someone who doesn’t love you back or learning to come back from a breakup, the kind of music that they use to score a scene where the protagonist has to watch the love of their life die from like, fucking tuberculosis or something. 

Johnny doesn’t bother holding back, his angry grunts the only sound that precedes the punches he throws against the bag that’s suspended by a chain from the ceiling. He’s not angry at Yuta, he’s angry at himself for letting it get this bad, for letting it get this far. He knows he needs to end this, whatever this shit is. Knows that that morning needs to have been the last time. 

He’s had a taste of something that he’s not supposed to have, and he needs to nip this in the bud before the longing turns to greed, and the greed to something else entirely. 

Johnny loses track of how long he spends beating the shit out of the punching bag, but knows he’s sore and he’s exhausted. He’s got no idea what time it is, really, and doesn’t care much enough to check his phone.

He’s got his eyes closed, leaning against the glass, panting to catch his breath when he hears someone clear their throat.

Yuta is there leaning against the door frame, hair pulled back, tendrils of red falling from the small ponytail high up on his hair. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest, shoulder leaning heavily on the chipped wood. 

Johnny wants to weep. 

“You let out whatever you needed to get out of your system?” Yuta asks, his eyebrow raised. 

He walks into the room, toeing his sneakers off before he steps onto the rubber matting that is laid out all over the gym. 

Thing is, Johnny thought he did, but he doesn’t have enough time to school his expression into something that’s entirely convincing. He’s sure that Yuta can see the flash of panic on his face before Johnny says, “I’m feeling good now,” before he tries to throw Yuta his most convincing smile. Yuta frowns. 

“Is something going on, Johnny?” Yuta says, coming down into a crouch, and Johnny doesn’t miss how Yuta is holding himself. Like he’s afraid to touch Johnny. Like he wants to take a step closer but he’s afraid Johnny’s going to balk. Like he didn’t just saunter over and obliterate Johnny’s flimsy hold on his own sanity by doing what he did on stage tonight. Johnny kind of hates himself.

This is it, Johnny thinks. This is the tipping point. 

He clears his throat and schools his expression into something he can work with. 

“Ah, no,” Johnny says. 

The frown on Yuta’s face only deepens, like he knows Johnny is lying to him, and Yuta would be well within his rights to think so. Johnny’s never lied to him before. 

This is the beginning of the end then, Johnny knows. He's fucking this up, but the other option isn't ideal. _I’m so stupid_, Johnny thinks to himself. Yuta looks up at him. His face is a storm, his lips a thin line. 

"Well," Yuta says, eyes downcast. His lashes fan over his skin. "Can I still kiss you? It's been so long."

_So, so fucking stupid_, Johnny thinks, before opening his mouth and saying, "Yes, of course."

It's the biggest mistake Johnny makes, out of all the series of missteps that he has taken to get to this point. His knuckles are sore. Yuta's got stale beer on his breath. Johnny tries to shut his brain off, tries to focus on the feeling of Yuta's tongue curling into his mouth. He has half a mind to drag him to a changing room cubicle, but Yuta’s already crowding his space.

For a brief second, Johnny panics. They've never done this anywhere even remotely public, not where someone could walk in, but it’s still dark out. No one will be coming in. 

Johnny can’t keep the emotion out of this kiss, and he thinks,_ fuck it._ Yuta is everywhere, everywhere, all around him, and the singular thought that Johnny attempts to distill into the press of his lips as he kisses the triangle of muscle that Yuta bares for him is _I'm in love with you._

For every pull from Yuta, Johnny follows through, chases the taste of him from the vermillion of his soft lips to heaving skin over Yuta's racing heart. Their shirts are off, their breathing ragged, and Yuta is gripping at Johnny's shoulders, locking his forearms behind Johnny's neck as Johnny lifts him up and plasters his back to the mirror.

Johnny feels both completely unmoored and in total control.

“God, I've missed you," Yuta is whispering, his fingers tight in Johnny's hair.

Johnny's got him pinned to the wall, his hips stuttering with trying to get friction between them.

"I've missed you," Johnny says. He forgets his filter. He thinks, _God, if this is the last time, let it be everything to him._

And Yuta, God help him, Yuta's looking at him with bright eyes, blinding, so blinding Johnny almost forgets that Yuta had chosen a man who had been as tall as him, built like him, just a few hours prior.

Johnny has no right to kiss Yuta the way he does in that moment. He feels like a thief, feels like he's undeserving, but he ignores the screaming voice in his head and uses his lips to claim Yuta, kisses hard enough that Yuta is rutting up against him like their first time, nearly two years ago.

Yuta looks at him in awe, like he's seeing Johnny just then.

Johnny's strong enough to brace him against the glass with one arm while he pulls Yuta in to keep sliding his lips over Yuta's, and Johnny's grip is firm before Yuta's hand takes him softly by the wrist to pull it away.

He's broken skin, it seems. Johnny hadn't noticed. His knuckles hurt, now that Yuta is pressing kisses butterfly-soft on them.

"What happened that got you riled up like this?" Yuta asks, and Johnny bites his tongue. 

"Nothing," he says. 

"That's the second lie you've told me tonight, Johnny," Yuta says.

Johnny is caught, and this feels like the moment. 

If he was a braver man, he would have said something, actually said something substantial. 

But instead Johnny tells him the truth by brushing the hair back from Yuta’s eyes, and leaning in to kiss him soft and slow, and it isn’t words. He’s still technically lying, but his kiss isn’t, he knows this, hopes that it registers to Yuta, what he’s trying to say because he’s too chickenshit to actually say it out loud.

_ I can’t lose you _, Johnny says with his tongue. 

_ It’s okay if you want to see other people, _ he says with his teeth. _If it means you’re coming home to me at the end of the day._

_ I understand now why so many people write about love the way that they do_, he says in his head, swallowing the soft moan that Yuta lets out. 

Johnny tells himself that this kiss is enough. Tell himself that Yuta understands enough, that this kiss was his offering at Yuta’s doorstep and it’s up to Yuta to take it if he wants. 

(He knows it’s unfair. That it’s not an answer. But when he lowers Yuta to the ground, and Yuta keeps his arms slung around Johnny’s neck longer than he expects, Johnny crosses the threshold into hoping. He knows he’s sealed the fates for himself, that this will only end in a crash-and-burn event, but he thinks that maybe he can contain the blast radius of it. For Yuta, he will.)

-

They decide to change things up a little for their LA show. 

Johnny had done a little electric guitar cover of Rihanna’s 'Desperado' on a whim and had posted it to his account a couple of weeks prior, and it’s become one of Johnny’s most popular posts. Noisey even does a goddamn article on it, and while their fans have tagged Rihanna in the post several times, Johnny’s just glad to have shared something people are responding positively to.

But then the requests keep coming, comment after comment in several languages asking them to do a full cover of it, so they try to put together a quick rehearsal for it, Jaehyun learning the drums just basing it off of what he hears from the Köln performance and Doyoung stretching the limits of his vocal fry. 

And so it becomes part of their encore, Doyoung pulling his jacket off to reveal slender arms, pale shoulders barely covered by the black shirt he’s wearing under it, and the shrieking from the crowd is almost deafening. Doyoung usually covers up, but when he’s feeling himself, he likes to take a leaf from Yuta’s book and pull on the puppet strings himself. 

_“Desperado,_” Doyoung sings, jacket still off just his shoulders. _“Sitting in a old Monte Carlo, a man whose heart is hollow uh.”_

He’s pulling out all of the stops, crouching in front of the fans reaching up and out to him from the barricades, swaying his hips like he’s riding air. Johnny has no idea how any of the fans in the first couple of rows are gonna make it out alive after his performance. 

Johnny actually sees someone sort of faint, pressed up tight against the barricades, and he manages to catch Yuta’s eye long enough and quick enough that Yuta’s calling the bouncers over to help the fan without Johnny having to stop playing. 

Johnny walks over, his Les Paul a comforting weight around his neck, in his hands, he goes into the guitar solo three minutes in. The smoke rises behind him, and Doyoung takes a step back, because this is where he lets loose, retreats back into his head, and goes off, hips thrusting forward while he raised his eyes to the wings, to the ceiling. No one else is onstage with him-- it's just him. This is all just him.

He remembers the first time he had ever learned how to play, his small hands on nylon string, just a seven-year-old kid trying to teach himself how to play before his dad had made the decision to get him classically trained.

Johnny's first recital had been a travesty. He'd fucked up his piece, having gotten cold feet, completely unable to move, his D-chord falling flat.

He'd wanted to give up, ashamed that despite one-hour lessons every other day for several weeks, he still failed at it, but his mother had refused to let him stop, refused to let him give up so easily.

So he kept at it, learned to be headstrong, learned to drown out the fear that would attempt to take hold of his hands and freeze them up by narrowing his entire focus onto the wood and the string beneath the pads of his skin. 

He perfected Vivaldi's guitar concerto in D in four months. He executed it without a single hitch, an 8-year-old with a tiny concert hall brought to its feet. His first taste of success.

He's demanded the same focus and discipline from himself for the last 20 years, and here he stands, sweat clinging to his hair, running down his back while he pulls off what he thinks is the best goddamn guitar solo he's ever played in the last five years.

The roar of the crowd is deafening when the last chord fades away and he opens his eyes. Jaehyun is looking at him like he's incredulous, and Johnny's laughing, gasping for a breath he hadn't known he hadn't been taking.

They say their goodbyes with a promise to come back soon, Jaehyun throwing his stick into the crowd, Johnny and Yuta reaching out to the fans in the front row, and then they're heading back off stage.

There's a hand on Johnny's wrist that pulls him roughly away from the direction of the dressing room, and he's being shoved into some dark corner, Yuta pushing him against a metal pillar, and there are lips on his lips.

Yuta is kissing him-- kissing him in public, kissing him like he can't hold himself back, feral like a wild animal, licking into Johnny's mouth and Johnny lets out a moan, his hands on Yuta's hips. Yuta pulls him by the hair, brings his head down, rakes his teeth over Johnny's earlobe, tugging on it before saying, "Wanna ride you tonight."

Johnny is going to fucking turn into ash, that's how he feels when Yuta bites into the flesh of his neck. Yuta takes another breath, and says, "Wanna cum on your dick."

Yuta pulls away abruptly after that, exactly the kind of demon that Johnny has come to expect, has come to love.

He barely keeps it together on the way back to the hotel. He hurries packing up, but it's still an hour and a half before they're hauling ass back into the bus and being driven off, and Johnny is impatient, his skin itching to have Yuta on him.

It barely registers that they're back at the hotel until Yuta is pulling on his elbow, rough and demanding in his movements. They bid quick goodbyes to the rest of the band, Doyoung waving them off and laughing because everyone knows what's about to go down, and Jaehyun wolf-whistles while they run off to the elevator, Johnny's head spinning from Yuta's urgency.

"What the fuck," Yuta says the moment they enter their hotel room and Yuta is pushing Johnny up against the door. "What the fuck was that?"

There's been so much of this tonight, Johnny being pushed hard against things and being left bewildered. 

"Do you have any fucking idea how hot you are?" Yuta asks, like he's angry, but his hands are on Johnny's belt buckle, working the leather through the loops and pulling it off before undoing his fly. 

"I have no-- fucking shit, Yuta," Johnny swallows, his throat Sahara-dry when Yuta pulls his dick out of his briefs and starts stroking him. "What are you talking about?"

Yuta snarls, lunges for Johnny's lips, and Johnny doesn't know what to do with it except to give in.

They're on the bed and Yuta refuses to let Johnny touch him while he fingers himself open, and Johnny really is going to fucking flatline. This is his death.

It's barely ten minutes before Yuta is straddling him, rolling the condom on for Johnny and sinking down on Johnny's erection so quickly, Johnny's hands fly to Yuta's thighs to brace himself, to do something, anything to keep himself from unraveling and coming right on the spot.

Yuta rides him like he means it, trying to find the perfect angle to hit his sweet spot, and when he does find it, his torso bends into a beautiful arch, and Johnny can't help but reach out and pinch his nipples, make Yuta cry out more. God, he doesn't even care who hears them, not when Yuta's screaming, "Johnny, yes!" like it's benediction.

It goes like that, movement that has the both of them lost in sensation, but now every time Yuta drops down on Johnny's dick and hits his prostate dead on, Johnny feels a slight quiver in Yuta's thighs, his legs slowly giving out.

"Should I-- should I take it from here?" Johnny chokes out, barely able to think straight when Yuta feels so good around him, clenching so tightly.

And all Yuta does is nod once before Johnny is flipping them over, taking Yuta by the hips, and sliding back into him, one of Yuta's legs on the mattress, the other thrown over Johnny's shoulder.

Yuta won't stop running his mouth, groaning "Harder, fuck, yes, just like that," and Johnny shifts his angle, and he's never been this deep, has never lost control like this, and Yuta says, "Coming, I'm coming," and he is, clenching so tight around Johnny it makes Johnny choke on an inhale, his seed spilling in hot spurts across his abdomen and Johnny's chest.

Johnny moves to pull out, knows that even with the condom on usually Yuta finishes him off with his mouth or his hands, but Yuta's locking his ankles behind Johnny, and arching up, saying, "Finish in me" and Johnny, well, Johnny is so, so fucked. So far gone he can barely think.

He's never finished inside of Yuta. Always too intimate. Always too much, even if he's wanted to. But Yuta has him locked in place, and Yuta has his lips to Johnny's ear saying, "Fuck me like you mean it, John."

Johnny pulls Yuta in closer, leans in to take Yuta's lower lip in his teeth, and fucks into Yuta exactly the way he told Johnny to, and he can feel his orgasm building, the slap of Yuta's ass and their mingled breaths deafening in his ears. 

"Give it to me," Yuta groans. "I love your cock, Johnny. I love it, fuck, you feel so good."

It's too much. It isn't enough. Johnny feels like he's moving through molasses, feels like he's driving on a highway, feels like he's about to explode, and then he's coming, using one hand to keep the condom in place, spilling into it, Yuta not giving him an inch of space as Johnny's cock twitches from overstimulation, from how incredibly tight Yuta is around him, how much tighter he feels around John like this.

Yuta looks so beautiful when he is blissed out, so it is dangerously close for Johnny to say something that might scare him off, and Johnny can't have that. He can't lose Yuta, can't just say "I'm in love with you," while he's buried inside of Yuta. He starts, catching his breath, "Yuta-- I--"

"Hmm?" Yuta hums, arms slung loosely around Johnny's neck. His eyes are closed, but he's smiling, sleepy soft. 

Johnny needs to leave.

He can't be here like this. Not unless he knows that Yuta wants him here for keeps, and he's not gonna get that.

He moves to pull away, to pull out of Yuta, to get off the bed and clean them up, but Yuta whines, keeps his legs wound around Johnny, and says, "Don't go." 

Johnny closes his eyes. 

Closes the distance between his lips and the arch of Yuta's cheekbone, his cock soft and sensitive and snug in Yuta's tight heat.

But Johnny does leave, long after he's brushed the hair back from Yuta's eyes, when Yuta falls asleep.

Johnny carefully slides out of bed, quietly putting his clothes back on. He glances at Yuta one more time before he opens the door and steps out to the corridor.

He doesn’t want to go back to his own room, so instead, he heads to the terrace at the rooftop. 

As luck would fucking have it, Taeyong is there on the phone, and by the furrow of his brows, Johnny knows he's probably talking to some music agency, a radio station or a concert venue manager. Johnny feels bad for intruding, is ready to leave again, but he hears Taeyong calling out his name.

"What's up Taeyong?" Johnny realizes he sounds a bit off, so he musters up a smile. “Sorry, you looked busy."

"Postponed their inquiry. Not gonna discuss business at 3 in the fucking morning," Taeyong says. "We do, however, need to discuss why you look like a kicked puppy after Yuta dragged you off to eat your face."

Johnny nearly turns tail, because even if people know that he and Yuta fuck all the time, no one has ever actually sat him down and talked about it, and it leaves him feeling raw in a way he hasn't since he performed Bad Romance drunk.

Somehow, Johnny has the decency to blush. It's like being scolded by your parent. Taeyong crosses his arms and says, "Oh please, the whole floor and also the ones above and below could hear you fucking his brains out. You need to explain though how amazing sex makes you look like you're about to cry."

Johnny can't bring himself to say it, but Taeyong says it instead.

"Oh Johnnyboy," Taeyong says. "How in the hell did you think you'd come out of this unscathed?"

It's not unkind. Johnny knows.

"It's not impossible to fuck without feelings, Yongie," Johnny says, leaning against the walls with his head tipped back. He's itching for a cigarette, but it's been one year, seven months since his last one-- just as long as whatever this thing he has with Yuta has lasted. Just as long as the one time Yuta had licked into his mouth and said, "God, I wish you didn't taste so much like tar," before kissing him again anyway.

Johnny goes on a tangent about how this is all horrible, that he Yoko Ono-ed the group by doing this, and Taeyong helpfully points out that that's a flawed argument and he shouldn’t be using Yoko Ono as a verb in this manner because it’s unfair to put the blame on her for how The Beatles disbanded, but Johnny tells him to shut up because that’s when he starts recounting all of the bands he knows that have imploded under the weight of members being romantically involved with each other.

Johnny starts freaking out about how Ryan left Panic! At the Disco after he and Brendon ended things and Taeyong says, "You can't keep using your high school fanfiction as a means to back your case here, Johnny."

Taeyong supplies that Win Butler and Regine Chasagne are still married and have been since 2003, which of course makes Johnny even more sort of hysterical because Taeyong used the word “married” and Johnny still remembers when they all watched Arcade Fire's Coachella set and Johnny had cried through the entirety of Wake Up and Ready to Start.

"Fuck, Taeyong, I don't want us to have to break up in order for us to turn out our own 'Rumours'," Johnny says, head in his hands before scoffing at himself. "I say break up as if there's anything to break up, haha!"

“First of all,” Taeyong says, scrolling through the notifications on Neon City’s Twitter account. “Bold of you to assume that we'll ever turn out anything as good as _The Chain_," which earns him an indignant “Hey!” from Johnny, and which Taeyong ignores. 

“And second of all,” he says, before locking his phone and putting it on his lap. “Don't you think you should be talking about this with Yuta first before making the assumption that the only resolution you're going to arrive at is a breakup?"

Johnny lets out a sigh, runs his hands through his hair. It's gotten too long, he thinks. But he'd put it up sometimes and Yuta would look at him wide-eyed in wonder. Johnny's been putting off every schedule with his barber for a couple of months now.

Johnny doesn't expect to hear his phone go off at this time, but he sees Yuta's name on the caller ID and he answers it, pointedly ignoring Taeyong's raised eyebrow.

"Yuta?" Johnny asks, his heart racing. 

"Where’re you?" Yuta asks, voice small. 

"Uh, I'm on the rooftop with Taeyong, what's wrong?"

Yuta pauses. 

"I asked you not to go," Yuta replies. "I-- nevermind."

The call ends, and Johnny feels like he's going to be sick.

Something is wrong, Johnny can tell, his heart is going a mile a minute. 

"Get your man, Johnny," Taeyong says, waving him off. "Fix this."

Johnny rushes to the seventh floor, wills the elevator to get him to it faster, wishes he had taken the fire exit instead, but then he's there, Yuta's spare key card in his hand. He hesitates, and he rings the doorbell instead.

It takes a while for Yuta to come to the door, but when he does, the look in his eyes is not at all what Johnny expects.

Yuta looks pissed, but withdrawn. 

"Hey," Johnny says. "Can I come in?"

Yuta exhales, and steps aside.

The air is thick and Johnny can't seem to cut through it. Yuta is looking at him like Johnny's broken his heart, and hurt lances through him before Yuta turns away, and crawls back into bed.

Johnny follows, even if he's unsure that he's even welcome here.

"Yuta?" Johnny says, sitting at the foot of the bed. 

The sky outside is gloomy, the earth only just coming to. Yuta doesn't respond immediately, but Johnny knows he's awake, so he waits.

"Why did you leave?"

Johnny swallows around it. Yuta turns over in bed, covers still thrown over him. Looks straight at Johnny.

"I-- I just needed to get some air," Johnny replies. It's not a full lie. Half-truths are all he seems to be giving anymore.

This pisses Yuta off, makes him huff, tsk in annoyance. 

"You keep lying to me, Johnny," Yuta says, his voice flat. 

Johnny needs to salvage this, needs to come clean. God, how'd he let it get this bad?

"Do you remember when we started this, when you first kissed me?" Johnny asks. He's looking at his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

Yuta sighs. 

"How can you ask me that? Of course, I remember."

"We had had a lot to drink," Johnny says. "But I remember asking you over and over and over if you were sure."

Johnny doesn't know where he's going with this, just lets himself run his mouth. This is the point of no return.

"I didn't know at the time how much I'd wanted you until you let me in," Johnny continues. "And I thought that that was all it was. I liked how you tasted when I kissed you, that I liked how I felt when I was in you."

Johnny lets out a grunt of frustration. 

"But we never talked about it, what all of this was, cos we're just having fun, right? That's all this is?"

Yuta, in silence, says, "Sure."

"The problem is that I'm in love with you," Johnny says, and he risks a glance at Yuta. "The problem is that I went and got greedy and fell in love with you and I-- I've really got no right to be saying any of this, and I can't believe I'm putting you in this position and I have tried to fight it--"

"Can you say that again?"

Johnny turns to him, and Yuta is sitting up in bed, looking straight at him. 

"Say what? Which part?"

“That first part,” Yuta says. There’s a lock of hair that’s fallen into Yuta’s eyes. Johnny wants to push it away.

“I’m in love with you,” Johnny says, slow and sure. He plants his feet on the carpet beneath him. Clenches his hands to keep them from shaking. 

Yuta throws the covers off of himself, clad in nothing but his black boxer briefs, and Johnny tells himself to keep his eyes up on Yuta’s face. Yuta reaches out, the grey morning sun making the black paint on his nails stand out more stark against his pale skin. 

No one else in the world is awake. No one else in the world matters. 

Yuta’s got Johnny’s jaw cupped in his hand, thumbing over Johnny’s lips. 

“Say it again,” Yuta says, coming closer, closer, coming to straddle Johnny’s hips and settle in his lap.

Johnny gives in. When it comes to this man, Johnny’s pretty sure he’s almost always going to give in.

“I’m in love with you,” Johnny says, just before Yuta kisses him, kisses him slow and deep, licks into Johnny’s mouth, guides Johnny’s hands to his hips, presses his thighs into either side of Johnny’s.

He kisses Yuta back with fervor, rearing up to seize Yuta in his hands, fingers in Yuta’s hair, holding on to him like he could evaporate if Johnny wasn’t looking. 

“I don’t want to keep kissing strangers anymore,” Yuta says, when he pulls away for a breath, his forehead pressed to Johnny’s like that night onstage. “I don't want warm bodies of strangers at 4 am.”

“I don't,” Yuta says, and he breaks off, his voice wrecked, thumbs stroking Johnny’s cheeks like he’s nervous, like he’s trying to ground himself. “I don’t want to keep trying to scrounge around for little bits of love in different people when you’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

Johnny’s always had a wild imagination, has always allowed himself to imagine being on stage the way they get to do now. He used to practice receiving awards in the mirror in his bathroom. He’d even prepared a full list of people he’d thank in the 1 minute they’d have for their ments. 

He’s never allowed himself to think about this. He’s never allowed himself to think about Yuta beyond the terms they’d set for themselves, even if they never actually did. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Johnny whispers, his hands stroking up the gentle curve of Yuta’s spine. 

“The same reason you never did, either, it seems,” Yuta replies, and it’s the first he’s smiled since Johnny got here. 

“I think the rest of the band thinks we’re stupid.” Johnny is nosing at Yuta’s skin, rubbing against his shoulder.

“Did Taeyong talk to you too?” Yuta says, and the tension leaves like a curse is broken. 

“The band definitely thinks we’re stupid,” Johnny says, and Yuta, vibrant, beautiful, bares his neck when he laughs. Johnny sees the bruises there, red-purple against Yuta’s skin. It makes him hold on to Yuta closer, and he tips himself forward, rising off the bed and throwing Yuta’s balance off so that Yuta shouts in his ear and loops his arms around Johnny’s neck tighter before he’s snorting and smacking Johnny’s bicep. 

“We are stupid,” Yuta says, raking his fingers through Johnny’s hair, gathering it in his hands like he’s about to put it in a ponytail. “Did you grow this out for me?”

Johnny rolls his eyes, and says, “Yes.”

Yuta presses his lips softly over the mole on Johnny’s cheek. 

“Did you quit smoking for me?” Yuta asks, still holding Johnny’s hair in his hands. 

Johnny narrows his eyes before responding.

“Why do I feel like this is a trick question?” Johnny asks, massaging his hands into the soft of Yuta’s ass, and it should be ridiculous, and it’s not entirely sexy, but this is the lightest he’s ever felt with Yuta. Nothing to hold back anymore. “I quit for myself, but you were the tipping point.” 

Yuta takes his answer and nods, releases Johnny’s hair. Yuta looks like he’s searching Johnny’s face for something, but then he opens his mouth and says, “I’m in love with you, Johnny.” 

Johnny feels warmth spread from the space where that dark thing had once taken hold of him, what feels like an age ago. 

“I’m taking her out for a spin,” Yuta says happily. “And by ‘her’ I mean saying I’m in love with you. I’ve never said it out loud before.” 

“How’s it feel?” Johnny asks. 

“Remember when I spent a week learning how to do Miyavi’s Selfish Love and I finally nailed it while you took a video?” Yuta says, and Johnny definitely doesn’t miss the fact that he’s kind of grinding his ass into Johnny’s crotch. He’s definitely doing it on purpose. 

“Yeah, what about it?” Johnny chokes out, closing his eyes against the friction, even though he’s sure that Yuta is doing this to get a rise out of him. 

“Take how happy I was then, and then multiply it with the day we got Rapunzel,” Yuta says. “And then raise that to the power of our first major concert. That’s how good it feels.”

Johnny does the math in his head as he searches for Yuta’s lips. It all seems to add up. 

“That’s how it feels for me, too,” Johnny says. 

The room is filled with soft light that filters through the sheer curtains, and Johnny lays Yuta out over the sea of white cotton they’re enveloped in, another queen-sized bed in another city they’re set to explore, worships his body with a mixture of whispered praise and lines that Johnny had written with Yuta in mind but had never shared to anyone. Yuta trails his fingers over the vast expanse of Johnny’s chest, over his shoulders, over his ink, over his abdomen, like Yuta’s touch is there to adorn him. 

This feels like it should be monumental, and it is, but it doesn’t overwhelm Johnny in the way the black tar of jealousy and longing did that night. There is no ringing in his ears, no guitar riffs or violin music. There’s no worry, no fear. There is only Yuta’s breathing, the wet sound of Johnny’s lips on his.

Hours later, spent and in each other’s arms, Yuta asks him what he wants to do. 

Johnny props his head up on his hand to look at Yuta, and sings, “I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours,” while pressing small kisses all over Yuta’s cheek. Yuta pretends to gag. 

“This is all I’m gonna get from now on, huh?” Yuta asks, his voice shaking from laughter as Johnny attempts to blow raspberries into the soft of Yuta’s belly.

“Yes,” Johnny says, his chest filled to the brim. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Thank fuck,” Yuta says, his smile radiant. “That’s exactly what I want.”

-

Later, on stage, after the rest of Neon City has ribbed them for finally getting their shit together, they play their best set, and at one point, Yuta and Johnny play with their backs pressed against each other, and not much changes really, except everything does, and Johnny sings his throat raw. He wonders if the fans can see it, if they can sense the frameshift mutation that’s happened in between their last performance and this one. 

There’s a flag in the front row that catches his eye, someone beautiful holding it up like a cape, like they’re at war. Johnny crouches down in front of them while Jaehyun goes HAM on the drums for Iron Night, sees the sign that says “LESBIANS ❤️ JOHNNY”. It makes him smile so wide, he thinks his face will break under it. Reaches out, the fan’s hand touching his. Remembers what it’s like to be on the other side of this stage. 

A massive piece of cloth that he pulls toward himself, pulls over his shoulders while the crowd absolutely loses its shit. Johnny stands up, gets back to playing. Thinks that the red and the orange and the yellow and the green and the blue and the indigo and the violet look good with the black shirt he has got on.

Johnny doesn't think of himself as anyone's hero, but he reads every single letter that the fans give them, when they're met with a throng at the airports or outside their hotels.

They all go to sleep surrounded by postcards and cream paper and yellow pad with words scrawled in many languages, testaments to the fact that somehow when they're sharing the music they make with the people who write these letters, they're doing something worth something more.

Johnny thinks about how Yuta makes him feel brave, how they've always edified each other.

The last 24 hours have seen Johnny throw caution to the wind. He sends a silent prayer up in the hopes that Taeyong doesn't have an aneurysm, or send him home in a casket for this, because just as the bridge to Iron Night crests, Johnny takes Yuta by the neck, and pulls him in, slides his lips over Yuta's for a brief second.

The crowd is a wall of sound, and Jaehyun is laughing straight into the microphone, Doyoung jumping, turning to the crowd, arm outstretched.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Doyoung says while flashes go off from the pit. "They finally got their shit together!"

Johnny flips him off, and kisses Yuta full on the mouth before pulling away and winking. He's never felt this alive.

Johnny doesn't think himself a hero, but he's standing on a stage with a family he cobbled together five years ago, with the love of his life looking up at him like he hung the moon, and he thinks maybe he could be.

Maybe he could be.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [my carrd,](https://t.co/Nm5AvDvn2U)made by the lovely [Erin](https://t.co/jwzDNfdNsI?amp=1); [twt](https://twitter.com/johnnyseo_paws).
> 
> You can also find me on[cc](https://curiouscat.me/johnnyseo_paws).
> 
> -
> 
> Some notes:
> 
> If you're interested, the scene where Yuta pulls Johnny closer to him by the neck is supposed to be Neon City performing [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELKbtFljucQ&pbjreload=10). Imagine the guy in red as Johnny, Doyoung on lead vocals, Jaehyun on drums and backup vocals, Yuta as the guy with the scarf.
> 
> -
> 
> Any guesses on who Johnny made out with? :)  
(It was Wonho.)
> 
> -
> 
> Win and Regine are members of the band Arcade Fire. Rumours is in reference to Fleetwood Mac's Magnum Opus: Rumours, which came about a little after two of the members had broken up. "The Chain" is one of their most well-known songs.


End file.
